Saturday Salon: To get you in the mood for the next book review.

Pierre-August Renoir - source

Pierre-August Renoir - source

Vincent Van Gogh - source

Vincent Van Gogh - source

Vincent Van Gogh - source

Claude Monet - source

Claude Monet - source

Claude Monet

Paul Gaughin - source

Paul Gaughin - source

Berthe Morisot - source

Berthe Morisot - source

Henri de Toulouse Lautrec - source

Henri de Toulouse Lautrec

Edouard Manet

Edouard Manet - source

Edouard Manet - source

I don't have to introduce you to the French Impressionists and their ilk, so this post is just a visual reminder for when we get to talking about The Book, you'll be in the mood. Pay attention to the blue.

Swift synopsis: In the past ultramarine blue was a very difficult color to produce - the artists ground their own from lapis lazuli or bought the color from someone who was generally known as 'the color man'. They either bought the ingredients or the color itself, ready made. Many artists preferred grinding their own colors. Ultramarine was an expensive commodity and highly prized.

You can occasionally come across a painting (in and out of a museum) seen missing areas which were originally meant to be in blue. The spaces are blank waiting (in vain) for the artist to be able to get his hands on the blue. (I learned this from reading 'The Book'.)

Stay tuned.

Saturday Salon: Let's Go to the Museum. Contemporary painter Karin Jurick

Karin Jurick - source

Karin Jurick - source

Karin Jurick - source

Karin Jurick - source

Karin Jurick - 'Day Dreamers' - source

Karin Jurick - 'How Bourgeois' source

Karin Jurick - source

Karin Jurick - 'O'Keefers' - source

Karin Jurick - source

Karin Jurick - source

Karin Jurick 'Celebrity Sighting' - source

This is the wonderful work of American painter Karin Jurick - newly discovered by me (I know, where have I been?). Couldn't wait to share it. I love these paintings of museum goers and their attitudes, the paintings within paintings. A separate world.

Quote from Karin Jurick's blog regarding the last painting - 'Celebrity Sighting': "I love this story - record crowds have been 'flocking to the Frick Collection' to see the Dutch painter, Carel Fabritius's oil titled 'Goldfinch' - which is the inspiration for the novel by Donna Tartt. It is a wonderful thing when masses of people are interested in art and get to the museums.'

I couldn't agree more.

Sunday Salon: Winter and Reading - Perfect Together.

Honor C. Appleton (1879 - 1951) English Illustrator -source

Louis Charles Verwee (1832 - 1882) Belgian Painter - source

Lovis Corinth (1858 - 1925) German Painter - source

Lila Cabot Perry (1848 - 1933) American Painter - source

Carl Larsson (1853 - 1919) Swedish Painter

Oxana Sokolovskay - source - no artist info available

Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier (1815 - 1891) French - source

Pol Ledent (1952 - ) Contemporary Belgian Painter source

Henri Lebasque (1865 - 1937) French Post Impressionist source

Edouard Vuillard (1868 - 1940) French Painter - source

Haven't done a reading art post in a while and today seemed a perfect day to do so. Winter is the ideal time to hunker down and read - don't you think? However, we're expecting a heatwave tomorrow of 32 degrees or so (after several interminable freezing days) so Rocky and I shall probably go out and frolic. 

Saturday Salon: The bright, tantalizingly weird and stylized world of Robert LaDuke

I love Robert LaDuke's paintings even if sometimes I'm thinking 'what on earth does this man mean by this?' That's half the fun.

I suppose this is an art deco type style, if it must be categorized. I'm taken by the flatness, the odd perspectives, the bright colors, behind the stylized stillness, the almost constant sense of desperate motion, the occasionally bizarre situations and even the portents of disaster. There's something excruciatingly silent about Robert Laduke's world - I simply can't imagine what music might accompany it. Or for that matter, what actual noises. Everything that is happening I'm imagining happening in total silence. Even those plane and cars falling out of the sky. But I don't seem to mind it. That's the odd effect the work has on me.

I couldn't find much biography of the artist, except that he was born in 1961 in Massachusetts and attended the Art Institute of Chicago. I wish there were more. If you find any, please let me know so I can update.

Link to see more of Robert LaDuke's work here and here.

Fortunately many of the paintings are available as posters online.

I've culled the paintings in my post from various sources online in the interest of education, enlightenment and just the sheer joy of sharing art that I love. All the paintings are copyrighted by Robert LaDuke and no infringement is intended.